YouTube Transcript Search – Find Words Spoken in Videos

What does YouTube Phrase Search do?

YouTube Phrase Search finds real YouTube clips where people say a word or phrase. For each match you get the sentence spoken, the exact timestamp, and a link that starts the video at that moment. Search in 20+ languages and filter by accent: American, British, Australian, Egyptian, Saudi, Mainland Chinese and many more.

It runs on the Apify platform, so you can search in bulk through the API, schedule runs, and export results to Google Sheets, CSV or Excel.

Why use YouTube Phrase Search?

• Language learning and teaching: hear how native speakers actually use and pronounce a word, in context.
• Pronunciation by accent: compare a word in American vs British vs Australian English, or across Arabic dialects.
• Linguistics and research: collect real spoken examples of words and phrases at scale.
• Content creators: find clips that mention a topic, with timestamps ready to cite or embed.
• Brand and media monitoring: see where a name or phrase is spoken on YouTube.

How to find a phrase in YouTube videos

1. Click Try for free (or Start).
2. Enter your word or phrase in Search query.
3. Pick the Language.
4. Optionally enter an Accent code (see the table below), or leave it empty for all accents.
5. Click Start. Each result links straight to the moment the phrase is spoken.

Input

Field	Description
Search query	Word or phrase to find, e.g. diagonal or on the other hand
Language	Spoken language of the videos
Accent	Optional accent code for that language (empty = all)

{
    "query": "on the other hand",
    "language": "english",
    "accent": "uk"
}

Accent codes (examples)

Language	Accents
English	us American, uk British, aus Australian, can Canadian, ie Irish, sco Scottish, nz New Zealand
Arabic	sa Saudi, eg Egyptian, mo Moroccan, lb Lebanese, ae UAE, jo Jordanian, and more
Chinese	cn Mainland China, tw Taiwan, hk Hong Kong, sg Singapore
Dutch	nl Dutch, be Flemish
Sign language	us American SL, uk British SL, aus Australian SL, and more

An accent that isn't available for the chosen language is ignored, and all accents are searched.

Output

Each matching clip is one row. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

{
    "video_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoE-Um-r4kU&t=1158s",
    "text": "And then on the diagonal to make little triangles.",
    "start": 1158,
    "end": 1163,
    "language": "english",
    "accent_name": ""
}

Data fields

Field	Description
video_url	YouTube link that starts playing at the moment the phrase is spoken
text	The sentence spoken in the clip
start, end	Start and end of the sentence, in seconds
language	Language searched
accent_name	Accent filter applied (empty = all accents)

How many results will I get?

You're charged per result, so the cost follows the number of rows below. Your plan's rates are on the Pricing tab.

Input	Results
A common word	About 10 matching clips per run
A rare phrase	Fewer, sometimes none

Tips

• Short phrases work best. Two to four words give the most natural examples.
• Compare accents by running the same query with us, uk and aus.
• Need full transcripts? Use YouTube Video Transcript to download the complete subtitles of any video.

FAQ

Can I search inside my own list of videos? Not with this Actor. It searches across YouTube's public captioned videos. To get transcripts of specific videos, use the YouTube Video Transcript Actor.

Why did a search return no results? The phrase may be too rare in that language or accent. Try removing the accent or using a shorter phrase.

Found a bug or need a custom solution? Open an issue in the Issues tab. Custom versions are available on request.

---

⭐ Found this Actor useful? A quick review on the Store helps other users find it and keeps it maintained.

Related tools

• YouTube Transcript Scraper – subtitles and captions with timestamps